Browsing by Subject "environmental justice"
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Item Addressing the Need for Just GeoHealth Engagement: Evolving Models for Actionable Research That Transform Communities(AGU, 2021-12) Hayhow, Claire M.; Brabander, Dan J.; Jim, Rebecca; Lively, Martin; Filippelli, Gabriel M.; Earth Sciences, School of ScienceGeoHealth as a research paradigm offers the opportunity to re-evaluate common research engagement models and science training practices. GeoHealth challenges are often wicked problems that require both transdisciplinary approaches and the establishment of intimate and long-term partnerships with a range of community members. We examine four common modes of community engagement and explore how research projects are launched, who has the power in these relationships, and how projects evolve to become truly transformative for everyone involved.Item Environmental Justice and Green Schools—Assessing Students and Communities’ Access to Green Schools(Wiley, 2019-10) Zhao, Shuang; Zhou, Shan; Noonan, Douglas S.; School of Public and Environmental AffairsObjective We investigate equity in the distribution of green schools, what kind of student populations they serve, and what kinds of communities host them. Methods Leveraging national school enrollment data (2000–2014), Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design data, and communities’ characteristics data from 2010 U.S. Census, we estimate logit models to examine the association between green schools and student and community demographics. Results Higher percentages of minorities in both student population and hosting neighborhood are associated with greater likelihood that new schools are green. New schools in more affluent and less educated communities are less likely to be green. Conclusion There is a lack of evidence for environmental injustice in students’ and communities’ access to new green schools in the United States. New schools serving lower‐income and minority families and children are more likely to be green, although environmental justice indicators such as education show somewhat “unjust” patterns.Item Evidence of Environmental Justice: A Critical Perspective on the Practice of EJ Research and Lessons for Policy Design(2008-12) Noonan, Douglas S.Objective. This article gleans important lessons for environmental justice (EJ) policy from the empirical literature and demonstrates them using EJ analyses of Superfund sites. It constructively critiques the EJ literature and suggests some future directions for designing policy and framing the discourse. Methods. The research methods of many quantitative EJ studies are reviewed. To demonstrate sensitivity to researchers' choices, logit models are estimated to explain the nationwide distribution of Superfund sites (and deletions from the NPL) using various spatial scales, control variables, and definitions of proximity. Results. Most empirical EJ studies examine cross-sectional distributions for aggregated demographic measures, dwelling on the implied counterfactual or causal mechanism briefly, if ever. The EJ analysis for Superfund sites exhibits much sensitivity to modeling choices and to whether environmental conditions or policy impacts are modeled. Conclusions. The findings highlight the limitations of conventional EJ research designs. Several implications for the design of EJ policy are drawn, emphasizing the importance of clarity about counterfactuals and which sorts of impacts are relevant. Principles for a revised EJ policy framework are proposed.Item Hot Spots Regulation and Environmental Justice(2011-05) Turaga, Rama Mohana R; Noonan, Douglas S.; Bostrom, AnnThis paper analyzes whether regulating “hot spots” of toxic air pollution by increasing the spatial resolution of regulation could address environmental justice (EJ) concerns. To examine this question, this paper develops a decision model of a regulator choosing emission controls within a net cost minimizing framework. An empirical application of the model using air toxic emission data for Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties in Florida estimates the emission standards and spatial distribution of risks at a coarse and a finer spatial resolutions. Implications for EJ are analyzed by combining the simulated spatial risk distributions at the two resolutions with the demographic data. Results indicate that different measures of EJ point to different conclusions regarding the question of whether finer resolution regulation alleviates EJ concerns. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for EJ policy.Item Population-Based Disparities in U.S. Urban Heat Exposure from 2003 to 2018(MDPI, 2022) Johnson, Daniel P.; Geography, School of Liberal ArtsPrevious studies have shown, in the United States (U.S.), that communities of color are exposed to significantly higher temperatures in urban environments than complementary White populations. Studies highlighting this disparity have generally been cross-sectional and are therefore “snapshots” in time. Using surface urban heat island (SUHI) intensity data, U.S. Census 2020 population counts, and a measure of residential segregation, this study performs a comparative analysis between census tracts identified as prevalent for White, Black, Hispanic and Asian populations and their thermal exposure from 2003 to 2018. The analysis concentrates on the top 200 most populous U.S. cities. SUHI intensity is shown to be increasing on average through time for the examined tracts. However, based on raw observations the increase is only statistically significant for White and Black prevalent census tracts. There is a 1.25 K to ~2.00 K higher degree of thermal exposure on average for communities of color relative to White prevalent areas. When examined on an inter-city basis, White and Black prevalent tracts had the largest disparity, as measured by SUHI intensity, in New Orleans, LA, by <6.00 K. Hispanic (>7.00 K) and Asian (<6.75 K) prevalent tracts were greatest in intensity in San Jose, CA. To further explore temporal patterns, two models were developed using a Bayesian hierarchical spatial temporal framework. One models the effect of varying the percentages of each population group relative to SUHI intensity within all examined tracts. Increases in percentages of Black, Hispanic, and Asian populations contributed to statistically significant increases in SUHI intensity. White increases in population percentage witnessed a lowering of SUHI intensity. Throughout all modeled tracts, there is a statistically significant 0.01 K per year average increase in SUHI intensity. A second model tests the effect of residential segregation on thermal inequity across all examined cities. Residential segregation, indeed, has a statistically significant positive association with SUHI intensity based on this portion of the analysis. Similarly, there is a statistically significant 0.01 K increase in average SUHI intensity per year for all cities. Results from this study can be used to guide and prioritize intervention strategies and further urgency related to social, climatic, and environmental justice concerns.Item Representative Bureaucracy, Distributional Equity, and Environmental Justice(Wiley, 2020) Liang, Jiaqi; Park, Sanghee; Zhao, TianshuThis article explores the role of bureaucratic representation and distributional equity in the implementation of environmental policy, which has been shaped by the politics of identity, administrative discretion, and a contested discourse on the redistribution of public resources. We examine whether minority bureaucratic representation fosters policy outputs for race-related disadvantaged communities, and whether the behavior of public administrators reflects distributional equity. Linking representative bureaucracy to environmental justice, this research contributes to the understanding of social equity in public administration and sheds light on the relationship between bureaucratic representation and democratic values. Analyzing a nationwide, block-group-level dataset, we find that a more racially representative workforce in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promotes the agency’s enforcement actions in communities that have large local-national disparity in minority population and severe policy problem. But the size of bureaucratic representation effect is larger for neighborhoods that are overburdened with race-related social vulnerability.Item Scales of Justice: Is there A Geographic Bias in Environmental Equity Analysis?(2007-03) Baden, Brett M.; Noonan, Douglas S.; Turaga, Rama Mohana R.Many empirical environmental justice (EJ) studies lack a systematic framework in which to undertake research and interpret results. This paper characterizes the conventional EJ study and examines how results can be influenced by the choice of the spatial scale and scope of analysis. After thoroughly reviewing a sample of prominent EJ studies, a conventional EJ study was performed for (Superfund) National Priorities List sites at multiple scales and scopes. It was found that evidence of environmental injustice could be sensitive to scale and scope chosen, which partly explains the observed inconsistency in the empirical literature. Implications for interpreting existing EJ research and conducting future EJ research are discussed.Item Superfund, Hedonics, and the Scales of Environmental Justice(2009-11) Noonan, Douglas S.; Turaga, Rama Mohana R.; Baden, Brett M.Environmental justice (EJ) is prominent in environmental policy, yet EJ research is plagued by debates over methodological procedures. A well-established economic approach, the hedonic price method, can offer guidance on one contentious aspect of EJ research: the choice of the spatial unit of analysis. Environmental managers charged with preventing or remedying inequities grapple with these framing problems. This article reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on unit choice in EJ, as well as research employing hedonic pricing to assess the spatial extent of hazardous waste site impacts. The insights from hedonics are demonstrated in a series of EJ analyses for a national inventory of Superfund sites. First, as evidence of injustice exhibits substantial sensitivity to the choice of spatial unit, hedonics suggests some units conform better to Superfund impacts than others. Second, hedonic estimates for a particular site can inform the design of appropriate tests of environmental inequity for that site. Implications for policymakers and practitioners of EJ analyses are discussed.Item Women Out Front: How Women of Color Lead the Environmental Justice Movement(2019-07) Fisher, Luke D.; McCormick, John; Friesen, Amanda; Blomquist, WilliamEnvironmentalism has incorrectly, historically been canonized as a primarily white, primarily male, led movement. This thesis argues that the history of the environmental movement has been whitewashed. Women of color have been the main arbiters of change as leaders in their community who organize against the environmental degradation that disproportionately affects communities of color. Change is implemented by these women through representation, grassroots organizing, and coalition but these strategies have been unrecognized and undervalued for decades. As the rate of environmental degradation rapidly increases, specifically affecting communities of color, the voices of women of color need to be recognized, elevated, and heeded in order to make an environmental movement that prioritizes justice and the importance of intersectional voices